In many churches, the first Sunday in October is traditionally “Israel Sunday”. This year (2009) Israel Sunday falls on 3rd October. That is also the day on which the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles commences. On that day, it would be great if those leading Church services would focus their sermons/talks on God’s purposes with Israel. In order to help, I would like to offer the following Sermon outline.
The Feast of Tabernacles is one of the large pilgrimage feasts in Israel in which several notions congregate: It’s the celebration of the late harvest of the fruit, the sign of the full end. But living in the so-called sukkot (tabernacle) also recalls to mind the journey through the wilderness: a time without material prosperity, but also a period in which the people sensed the leadership and protection of God. The sky is visible through the roof of a tabernacle and, in this way, the believer keeps his eye focused on God.
During the feast of the tabernacles, 1 Kings 8 is read. This is the history of the dedication of the temple by Solomon. Apparently, this event took place during the Feast of the Tabernacles (verse 2). My proposal is to read a part of 1 Kings 8, for example the verses 10-36 and 52-53. In addition to the reading of 1 Kings 8, Zechariah 8:1-8 could be chosen. This is a bible passage which deals with the dwelling of God amidst Israel in the eschaton.
Exegetical comments (1 Kings 8 )
Verse 10: The cloud conceals the presence of God and is contemporaneously an image of His Kabod, God’s glory. See also: Ex. 13:21 and Ez. 43:4
Verse 12: God resides in darkness. In all His majesty He is concealed from people. He is too great and too elevated to be seen by people or to be apprehended. See also Ps. 18:12 and Ps. 97:2.
Verse 13: Beth Zebul must be read as “elevated [or exalted] house”. Zbl is related to the Ugaritic word for “highness”.
Verse 16: “That My name might be there”. God himself is not present in the temple, only His glory. In this verse, this is expressed by the term: “My name”. Von Rad (Theol.des AT part I, p. 195): “Im namen existiert sein Träger”, ie. without God’s name, neither a meeting with Him, nor a church service is possible.
Content
Verses 12-21 This is the sanctification prayer of Solomon. After the priests brought the ark in the temple, the King spoke. He has built this house for God. He has been able to do this only because God promised it to his father David. God desires to dwell amidst His people and granted Solomon his monarchy.
Verse 22-53
Solomon asks the Lord to let this temple be a place where God and Israel meet each other. In fact, a house for God on earth is not possible. God is too great for this: “Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee” (verse 27). But let the Name of God be there and let the temple be the place in which God reveals Himself amidst his people. Let the eyes of the Lord look from the sky and his ears hear when someone in this house approaches Him. In this passage it is interesting that the king acts as a priest. And furthermore, that the temple is also a place of conversion and confession, a place of a new beginning. The church service will never take place without Israel walking in the way of God’s commandments and fearing Him (verse 36, 40 and 42).
Israel may claim the proximity of God: For Israel is set apart from the other nations (verse 53). This doesn’t mean that God has no interest in other nations. Verse 41 explicitly speaks of the stranger who comes for prayer in the temple: “That all people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people in Israel.”
Instructions for the sermon
1. God is too great to dwell in a construction built by people. He wraps Himself in secrecy and lives in an inaccessible light (Hebr.12). He is the Holy One. I think that this has to become evident when we speak of Him and in our relationship with God. We will never have God at our disposal, it’s not self-evident that He is among us. That’s paganism. In the Jewish-Christian belief there is a distance which becomes evident in fear of the Lord and in holy astonishment. In the Jewish-Christian belief a religion without a will to walk in His ways is nothing more than false religion.
2. At the same time, God desires to live among His people and to have a relationship with us. The Lord is a God who observes and listens to our life, a God who reigns on the psalms of praise of Israel (Ps. 22). The Holy One lets us call Him Father. He dwells in the temple of Jerusalem in Israel, that is: His greatness, His Name. In Sion is His most beautiful residence: Joël 3:17 and Psalm 46:5. It stays that way. In the exile, God goes with the Jewish people (Ez. 11:23), but when the children of Israel return to the promised land, God goes back to Jerusalem. There He dwells on earth (Ez. 43:4,5 and Zech.8:1-8).
3. Meanwhile, the glory of God is also manifested in another way: The Word has been made flesh and He dwells among Israel: Joh. 1:14. Jesus even says that He and the Father will reside our life as a temple (Joh.14:23; 1 Cor.3:16, Eph. 3:17). With this, the spotlight shifts to the congregation and us as individual believers. In our churches we are able to meet God (Joh.4:23), to confess our sins, to entrust our lives to Him and to start over again continuously, thanks to the Son.
4. The Feast of Tabernacles teaches us the following lessons: Our life is temporary, without God’s guidance it will lead to nothing. The prophetic criticism is that we have organized our own house much more and much sooner than the house of God; the dimension of our lives in which we meet God: (Hag.1:9). When it’s okay, our lives are opened to God and the encounter with God is the leading motive in our lives.
5. However, all this doesn’t take away the fact that we, also as a church, long for the day that the Lord will reveal Himself among Israel, that we shall see that He dwells in Jerusalem, that from all nations, we will assemble in Sion as believers, to celebrate the Feast of the Tabernacles in the new temple, which will be a house of worship for all nations. History moves towards the moment that Christ will reign from Jerusalem. A strange religion and a strange god have mastered the place where once the temple was and where it will arise again. It has all to do with the last offensive of the forces of darkness.
6. The Feast of the Tabernacles will take place in the fall. It becomes colder and in Israel the first rains will fall. This means that it can be chilly and uncomfortable in a tabernacle. I once read that Jewish families like to observe how a guest from outside, a Christian like me, handles a situation like that. Does he start complaining when the wind blows through cracks; does the guest look for the warmth of the house or does he stay put? Apparently, that’s the ambiguity of the Feast of the Tabernacles: On the one hand the feast of the late harvest, the completion, on the other hand the question how much you can take. That is how the days before the return of the Messiah will be: on the one hand the expectation and hope and on the other hand perseverance.
7. The question is: are we as a Christian congregation able to persist with Israel, throughout all temptation, until God will reveal Himself – to Israel, to the Church and to the nations - in all His glory?
Rev. Henk Poot
Netherlands
September 2009
Tags: Jewish feasts, Judaism, sermon
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